1
review

This sued to be a commercial plugin but all the macsynths stuff is freeware now. A lot of the synthesizers are just okay, ut I really like the sound of their 909 simulation. Generally if I wanna do the roland house drum machine thing I use a mixture of good samples and maybe some extra kick 4on-the-floor looped for a few bars offa my dr55, but when I first got this last year I was really taken with the sound. Apart from the cymbals which, like a 909 are sample based, this guy uses a little VA synth engine to replicate the rest of the drums. The toms sound particularly nice in a cheesy 80s way. Anyway, it doesn't sound JUST like a 909 but its big in a way samples aren't before processing. Drawback is that while there's a good internal mixer and some effects including a bare bones compressor and algorithmic reverb there are NO individual outs like a real 303 so everything gets routed to a stereo bus. My work around was to set up 2 or 3 separate instances when iw ant more control but its really a waste of CPU power. Its cool to use 1 of these layered with your samples on individual channels where you treat the plugin like a pair of overheads and the samples as close mics but you need to spend a lot of time ear tuning the plugin to match the pitch and you need to pay attention to the phase of your samples by ear to prevent washiness and dissonance. Still, one of the better 909 plugins out there for capturing the vibe if not the precise sound. Its nice to be able to tweak the knobs in real time. Good luck doing that with even the nicest samples.